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Recently the question of earliest date for a Garcia Bonnyl sticker on reel spools has arisen.

The earliest I could find “Bonnyl” in my complete set of Garcia Annuals/Magazines is 1966 (see scan below). As always, if I have missed something, please advise.

Barely visible on that page is print on the spool: “made in West Germany”. This implicates, but does not absolutely demonstrate, Garcia’s import source, Plate (Germany). Plate was the source for Platyl line (as trademarked by Garcia in the US; Platil in the rest of the world). I have sent a question about this to a German collector of Plate, that I know.

Garcia typically carried a variety of line options. In the early 1970s, included were Bonnyl and Royal Bonnyl (not to be confused with Royal Bonnyl II, which came later). Below is a March, 1970 Field & Stream ad explaining Garcia’s 4 different monofilaments.

John

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6600 Garcia Annual 154 Bonnyl.jpg

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7030 F&S 098 monofilaments.jpg

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Between 1937 and 1938 DuPont announced that their company had invented Polyamide fibres and the German company IG Farben (today Bayer) did the same. This new invention was the first synthetic fibre. In 1939, DuPont began marketing this material and used the "nylon" name for the monofilament fishing lines; however, braided polyester (DuPont called it Dacron) lines remained the most used and popular fishing line for the next two decades, as early monofilament line was very stiff or "wiry", and difficult to handle and cast. Early monofilament did, however have good knot strength and very low visibility to the fish, creating a small loyal following among fishermen. In the 1950s a number of companies started to produce their own nylon fishing lines, and we began to see the beginnings of the monofilament revolution that spawned the myriad of fishing lines that are available worldwide today.

In 1949, Dr Karl Plate registered the first monofilament plastic-fibre fishing line under the trade name PLATIL

I was not able to find much useful information about Rhodia Monofilament.Google BooksA History of the International Chemical Industry by Fred Aftalion (2001)

Quote:

Rhodiaceta had sold its acetate filament process to DuPont, obtaining in return a Nylon license in the Spring of 1938. The development of this new fiber was to play a significant part in the group’s postwar activities.

I perused some A.B.D.E. issues from 1935-37 at the BnF. There were ad’s with text such as “absolutely invisible in water” and “transparent like crystal” – so monofilament. However, the illustrations on those ad’s do not show a rod with spinning reel, but rather a pole (without reel). I did see some current online auction ad’s for those vintage lines in coils with package (like leader material). The nylon looked thick/stiff. So, I cannot say that monofilament for spinning reels was available in France at that time. Perhaps someone could help us with this question.

In regard to my hyperlinks in the thread above, thanks for the notice. I clicked them after posting and just now. All fine. The links are to major websites with high traffic. I’m not sure what your browser issue was.

In regard to your CAP questions and as you say you are curious, may I suggest you do some reading of related MRM Forum posts, possibly books and other sites?

In regard to the question of who made Bonnyl, a German collector/blogger pointed out to me that the original Plate factory was located in the city of Bonn. Since Platil/Platyl was named after Dr. Plate, it’s certainly possible Bonnyl was named after Bonn – and made by Plate. Or, can we say likely?

I also found some images of Albatros Bonnyl Supreme packaged by Albatros (Dutch distributor), but no further information. The line is golden colored and as such I do not think that version was exported to the US. The symbol ® is present, but I have not been able to find who by or where the trademark was registered.

John

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Bonnyl Supreme Albatros.jpg

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